Marilyn Horne Takes Part In Music For All Seasons' Conversations Series 10/14

Renowned mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne will share her valuable insights and experiences in a rare interview with Nancy Shear, as part of Music For All Seasons' popular and acclaimed "Conversations" series. The event will launch the 2010/2011 series, and will be held on Thursday, October 14, from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m., at Saint Peter's Lutheran Church, Citigroup Center on 54th Street and Lexington Avenue.

The evening's program includes a question-and-answer session and a Meet-the-Artist reception with wine and hors d'oeuvres for all members of the audience.

Tickets to the event are $45, including the reception. Seating is limited.
For information and reservations, please call MFAS at 908-322-6300,
or toll-free at 1-866-524-(MFAS). Tickets are also available online at www.musicforallseasons.org. Proceeds benefit MFAS programs for
children living in shelters for victims of domestic violence.

Music For All Seasons' popular and acclaimed "Conversations" series, led by distinguished writer and broadcaster Nancy Shear, is an innovative program that has an enthusiastic and devoted following. Guests who have appeared include Marvin Hamlisch, André Previn, Lorin Maazel, André Watts, Steven Isserlis, Dawn Upshaw, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Richard Stoltzman, Peter Schickele, Barbara Cook, Marni Nixon, and the entire Juilliard String Quartet. Each of the "Conversations" is held in an attractive, unusual venue in New York City. Current and past locations include Steinway Hall, CFM Gallery, Bond #9, Bösendorfer New York, the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and BMI.

Additional Information

MUSIC FOR ALL SEASONS
Music For All Seasons, now celebrating its 19th season, is active in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and California. By bringing live musical performances to a wide range of institutions including children's hospitals, retirement facilities, shelters for victims of domestic violence, juvenile detention centers, nursing homes, medical centers, halfway houses and hospices, MFAS aids the physical, mental and spiritual healing processes. MFAS brings together a wide variety of people and styles of music, provides opportunities for young professional artists to serve special audiences, and creates volunteer opportunities that serve local communities.

The conversations, led by distinguished writer and broadcaster Nancy Shear, provide rare insights into the careers and lives of the guests and offer a behind-the-scenes look into the music world. The interviews benefit Music For All Seasons, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts, The Society for the Arts in Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson, and donations and grants from corporations, foundations and individuals.

Marilyn Horne
She has been called the finest mezzo-soprano of modern times and the most influential singer in American history. She is the Metropolitan Opera's first official "legend;" she is a Kennedy Center Honoree and the recipient of the National Medal of Arts; she sang at President Clinton's inauguration; she has danced and sung with Carol Burnett and with the Muppets; she was the voice of Dorothy Dandridge in the movie "Carmen Jones;" she sang in the chorus of the movie "The King and I;" she has a street in her home town of Bradford, Pennsylvania named after her, and she is a cancer survivor. This can all be said of only one remarkable artist-Marilyn Horne.

Ms. Horne made her operatic debut at the age of twenty in the role of Hata in Smetana's The Bartered Bride for the Los Angeles Guild Opera in the fall of 1954. After several successful years in Europe, Ms. Horne returned to the United States in 1960 where she made her debut with the San Francisco Opera company in the role of Marie in Berg's Wozzeck. Her remarkable range enabled her to sing a wide variety of roles before settling into the demanding coloratura bel canto roles for which she eventually became famous. The role of Arsace from Rossini's Semiramide was described by Winthrop Sargeant in the New Yorker: "Marilyn Horne, a mezzo-soprano of brilliant agility, backed Joan Sutherland to the hilt in the transvestite part of Arsace...and the duet between the two at the end of the third act was as spectacular a display of trilling and cascading pyrotechnics as I have ever come across." Musical America's Philip Kennicott described the reasons for her huge success: "She not only has a distinctive and beautiful voice, but also an incomparably even technique that allows her to fly through the tortuous roulades and runs of Rossini as if her voice were a dark wooden flute, played with superhuman dexterity."

In addition to multiple Grammy© Awards, international awards have included the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters from France's Ministry of Culture, the Commendatore al Merito della Repubblica Italiano, the Fidelio Gold Medal, the Covent Garden Silver Medal for Outstanding Service, and, created especially for her, Italy's first Rossini Medaglia d'Oro. Her many academic awards include honorary doctorates from schools including the Juilliard School, Johns Hopkins University, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

In 1993 she founded The Marilyn Horne Foundation, Inc. (MHF) to breathe new life into the vocal recital as an art form across the US. Ms. Horne was eager to give young vocal recitalists the recital opportunities she had had early in her career, opportunities which so helped in shaping her artistry. This year, the recitals of the MHF become part of the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall. Private teaching and international master classes continue to be a major focus of her life.

Ms. Horne is on the faculty at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. As Vocal Program Director, she teaches public master classes and private lessons to some of the world's most promising young artists. She has also been responsible for reviving full length staged opera performances at the Academy, including highly acclaimed productions of both traditional and rarely performed masterpieces.

Following a career of incomparable success, Ms. Horne retired from operatic singing in 1999 and from classical recital repertoire in 2000. Since then she has presented recitals of American Folk and Popular Song to great acclaim, working with such artists as Don Pippin, Robert White, Dick Hyman, and Barbara Cook. Her updated autobiography, The Song Continues, published by Baskerville press, was released for her 70th birthday celebration in 2004.

NANCY SHEAR
Nancy Shear is well-known as writer, lecturer, producer, broadcaster and director of a performing arts production and public relations company. She has lectured for the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Caramoor Festival; has hosted broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony, Frick Collection series and Naumburg Foundation; had her own interview programs on WNYC; and has been a commentator for the American Public Radio Network. Her articles have appeared in major publications such as Musical America, Ovation, the New York Times, Lincoln Center Stagebill and Symphony Magazine. She wrote entries for the 1992 Encyclopedia of New York (co-published by Yale University Press and the New-York Historical Society), and has written a book on the cultural phenomenon of The Three Tenors. Ms. Shear has taught at New York University's School of Continuing Education, NYU's Vernon Center for Foreign Affairs and The New School, and frequently lectures at educational institutions such as The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music on the business and art of music, and music in an historical context. She has hosted special events including benefits at the Rainbow Room and, with André Previn, co-hosted a gala at the Caramoor Music Festival. Her rich background includes almost two decades as orchestra librarian, for The Philadelphia Orchestra, Curtis Institute, and privately for Leopold Stokowski and other major figures of the current and recent past generations. Ms. Shear has also lectured on the life and work of Eleanor Roosevelt and on various travel subjects.